ABSTRACT
William Bateson was a British naturalist. He was one of the early Mendelians, whose work helped to establish Mendelian genetics on a firm footing. William Bateson was keenly interested in embryology and went to the United States to investigate the development of Balanoglossus. Bateson’s major contribution to scientific method was formulated in the lapidary phrase “Treasure your exceptions.” Bateson was interested in relating variation and patterns of symmetry. And his attention was particularly focused on two kinds of variation, meristic and substantive. Bateson reported the first case of incomplete linkage in the sweet pea, involving the gene pairs distinguishing purple flowers from red and long pollen grains from the round. Haldane’s “Bateson lecture” was delivered at the John Innes Horticultural institution in July 1957, shortly before his departure for India. Bateson became famous as the outspoken Mendelian antagonist of Walter Raphael Weldon, his former teacher, and of Karl Pearson, who led the biometric school of thinking.
